


catching the butterfly

by keepyousafefrommybow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Mockingjay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 14:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3385028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keepyousafefrommybow/pseuds/keepyousafefrommybow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She asked him to move in with her and yet she never stays.  Post-Mockingjay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	catching the butterfly

 

“I’m going to the woods.”

A tea cup in hand, Peeta looks up to see Katniss standing at the end of the stairs, her worn out leather boots barely making a sound when they land on the floor. Dark circles shadow her sunken eyes and if only the kitchen had better lighting, he’s sure he’d find streaks of tears under them. Lines that will most probably be retraced when the nightmares come and the faces of the dead appear to haunt her again tonight.

Peeta nods, takes a sip of his tea, but says nothing back. Seconds later, he hears the familiar click of the doorknob, the only sound reverberating the ghostly walls of the Everdeen house and sets his cup down the table. The tea ripples like a wave of dancers bursting onto the stage, and he watches, waits for the liquid to still before taking a sip again.

And again. And again. And again.

He has nothing else to do. Even Buttercup is nowhere to be found.

The sun has yet to rise for the day and Peeta’s already alone. 

 

***  
  


Katniss was the one who brought up the idea of him moving into her house. 

That day, they had invited Haymitch to join them for dinner, but their mentor declined, claiming he had other more important 'business' to attend to. Katniss acted like she didn't care, her reaction pretty much to everything, but there was no way Peeta could miss the flash of hurt in her eyes. For some reason, she had wanted the three of them to dine together—something that they hadn’t done in quite a long time He too, had felt the same, although he couldn't say he was as disappointed as she was when Haymitch turned down their invitation. Peeta couldn’t be. Not when he was sure he saw the older man winking at him from the window after willing them to leave him alone and throwing the door right in their faces.

Then evening came, but by the end of it, Peeta did not once expect that Katniss would ask him to live with her. He was washing the dishes, almost dropped a plate when she slipped next to him in her hunter footsteps, something he reminded himself he must get used to, and made the offer. Although he answered yes in a heartbeat, his agreeing to her suggestion wasn’t without questions.

“It’s more practical,” Katniss replied when he asked her why, drying the plates he had just washed and placing each of them carefully on the dish rack. Peeta held his breath, waiting for her to continue but unfortunately, Katniss had already reached her word count limit for that day.

Peeta never brought up the topic again, but even so, her answer still baffled him, leaving a million of scenarios running in his head. A lot of times he found himself dissecting those three words, arranging and rearranging them like blocks of letters in his mind, wondering if there was something hidden between those narrow spaces and he just have to squint harder to pinpoint what it was, but failing every single time. Finally, one late afternoon as he was doodling aimlessly on his drawing pad, it dawned on him. What puzzled him the most wasn't the brevity of her answer. 

It was Katniss' choice of words that did.

Practical. That was how she put it. That was how she felt about their whole arrangement. But why? What was so practical about it? Was it because they were literally eating together almost every night? Peeta didn't bother coming to her house just to have dinner. In fact with his prosthetic leg, he needed the daily walks.

Was it to stop any more speculations about the real nature of their relationship and to just give people the answer they wanted? The star-crossed lovers from District 12 living happily together after the war? If that was the reason, then Peeta kind of understood. Katniss didn't like the unnecessary attention. She never had. She probably thought that it would be easier to say yes than to deny and explain everything.

Or was it because she simply wanted him to be with her and saying it was practical was just a cover? A lie among all the other lies made and said between them? After all, it was Katniss herself who had made it clear long before that she didn't need anyone to survive. Not him or Gale. No one. And now she was just too stubborn enough to admit otherwise.

To this day, Peeta can still come up with other reasons, but none of them will suffice. Because for him, practical means something good and useful. Something that will work. And the concept of two broken people living together just doesn't belong to either of those.

He can hardly call it 'living together' either as Katniss spends most of her time outside. Since he moved in with her, she has never once stayed in the house. By dawn, she's already out in the woods, wearing her father's brown leather jacket, her dark hair in its usual braid, hunting like what she always tells him and only comes back for dinner and bedtime. Even on days when the weather gets in the way of her daily schedule, she still makes sure she's nowhere near the house.

"There's no more need for you to hunt, you know?" Peeta blurted out one time as Katniss was about to leave for the woods again. However, the only response he got from her was a vacant look on her face and it made him question what it was they were doing and why. But before he could utter those words, Katniss was already gone again and Peeta went back to drinking his tea.

She got home later than usual that night.

With no one to talk to, Peeta has no other choice but to voice his frustrations to Haymitch who surprisingly listens despite being intoxicated most of the time, but in his sober moments, can actually give him a pretty decent advice. One that doesn't involve survival tactics and the games for once.

"Let me ask you, boy," Haymitch said as they sat on his porch one morning, killing time by watching his ducks circle around the yard. Alcohol rations from the Capitol wouldn't be coming until next week but he seemed to be handling the withdrawal well. The birds appeared to have a positive effect on him just as they had predicted. "How do you catch a butterfly?"

Peeta raised his brows at the weird question, a snort threatening to escape him. But Haymitch's eyes were as lucid as his empty alcohol bottles lined up on the wooden floor, and such a hint of seriousness shading his tone that Peeta decided to refrain himself.

"Catch a butterfly?" he muttered to himself, taking a moment to think. Of all people, Haymitch should have known better than to ask him questions like that. Hunting wasn't his forte. Never had been. It was Katniss and Gale's--

_Gale_.

Peeta tried to put himself in his shoes and thought of how Gale would do it. He could imagine him not going after the butterfly with bare hands (which Peeta would likely do) but luring it with a sweet scent instead, a fruit most probably, placed inside a tube-shaped net suspended on a branch, and then shutting it close as soon as butterfly entered the trap.  _ A butterfly trap! _ Peeta mentally grinned, proud at the brilliance of his idea. Satisfied with the answer he came up with, he turned to Haymitch. 

"That's easy. Make a--"

"You don't." Haymitch shook his head, leaning back against his chair, his hand stretching as if to reach a bottle but stopping as soon as he realized there was none.

"What do you mean I don't?" Peeta asked, bewildered and at the same time, feeling uneasy at the disappointed expression of the man beside him.  What had he done now? "You just asked me how to--"

"You. Don't," their mentor repeated, emphasizing both words but to no effect. It wasn't until the next sentence that Peeta finally understood what Haymitch was trying to say. And once he did, he wanted to vanish immediately. The old Peeta would have come up with that answer right away, would have known it the way he knew the frosting recipes Prim used to admire from afar a long time ago. 

_ The old Peeta _ , he thought. Even he himself knew he wasn't the same person anymore.

"You don't catch the butterfly. Just stay still, and it'll come to you on its own."

 

***

 

It's past 10 o'clock and Katniss still hasn't come back.

The last time she got home this late was when he confronted her about her hunting trips, one thing he has decided not to ever do again. Peeta immediately retraces what happened this morning, wondering if he had said something that offended her but comes up empty. He doesn't even recall talking to her, much less saying a word throughout the whole encounter. So that can't really be the reason, right?

Peeta slumps to the couch, worry starting to work its way to his brain and then lingering there like the rancid odor that stuffed his nose whenever his mother made him open their food storage before. What if something happened to her while in the woods? Like slip down a slope and break her leg? What if she was attacked by a bear or a wolf or who knew what deadly creatures lurked there? Equipped with a bow and arrow, Peeta has no doubt Katniss can take down almost everything. But what if she wasn't paying attention? What if she was resting and it was too late for her to react?

Worst of all, what if she decided to run away and never come back?

Peeta shakes that last thought out of his head. That's him being selfish. A part of him he's always hated when it comes to Katniss. As if telling him to calm down, Buttercup, who reappeared after going missing for three straight days, leaps from the floor and settles on the couch next to him, brushing his scruffy tail against his arm. Ignoring the hard sticky texture of the fur, he gives the cat a scratch under its chin. Buttercup purrs back, stretching his neck which Peeta translates as "More, human. Scratch me more," to which, of course, he willingly obliges.

_If only figuring out what Katniss Everdeen wants was this easy_ , Peeta sighs dejectedly.

A few more moments and then without any warning, the door cracks open revealing a dishevelled Katniss, loose strands hanging from her braid, her eyes redder and puffier than he's ever seen. Peeta rises  from his seat, the metal springs of the couch screeching as he does, causing Buttercup to jump, and he approaches her in big walloping steps, his anger building up with every loud thud of his artificial leg on the floor. 

_ Anger? _ He frowns at the word. Yes, he's worried sick about her but not... angry. No. Definitely not. However, nothing makes more sense to Peeta but to feel so at that time. He's about to scream at her, asking where on earth she has been. But the tiniest jerk of her shoulders and the sight of her thin arms wrapping protectively around her sides halt him, making him think twice, the string of harsh words about to escape his mouth cut and swallowed down in a matter of seconds, and in the end, the only thing he manages to say is:

"Have you already had dinner?"

Katniss shakes her head and Peeta sets off reheat the tomato soup and toast the slices of bread he  ~~~~ saved for her without another word.

"Join me," she stops him right as he's about to go back to the couch after preparing her food and slides out a chair for him, making a refusal possible.

"Okay, but I'm not eating," Peeta yields, knowing he can never really deprive her of anything she wants, and takes the seat across her.

With nothing to do, Peeta amuses himself with teasing Buttercup who now circles around his good leg, mewling at him for food. Katniss, on the other hand, picks at her meal as though she has all the time in the world.  What is she doing?  It's almost 11 and in just a few hours she'll be gone again and then he'll be left alone. Even with Haymitch's advice, he still can't help but resent her a bit.

_ You don't go catching the butterflies _ , he jogs his memory, clenching his fists under the table, his nails digging into his flesh because it helps him remember. Pain makes everything easier for him to remember.  _ You don't _ .

After what seems like forever, Katniss finally places her spoon down, the metal tinkling against the white porcelain. Sneaking a look at her bowl, Peeta sees that she has barely touched the soup. He's about to ask if it tasted bad or she didn't like it when Katniss starts to speak, "I saw children."

"What?"

"In the meadow. On my way home," she continues in short broken phrases as if she says them as pictures flash in her head, each image equating to a word.  Flash. Word. Flash. Word. Flash.  "I saw children. They were playing. In the meadow."

Peeta feels stumped, not really sure what Katniss is getting at. So she saw children playing in the meadow. What about it? The electric fence is just a fence now. The people of District 12 are free to go to the woods anytime they-- oh . 

"You remember **_her_**." 

Katniss keeps silent but her turning away is enough answer for him to know he's correct. 

"Katniss," he breathes out, wanting so badly to reach for her hands and hold them in his but doesn't. They've talked more than they have over the past months tonight and Peeta already considers it a great improvement. Scaring her off by being physical all of a sudden is unnecessary. "It's okay to remember Prim."

At the mention of her name, Katniss whole body tenses up and shakes, yet Peeta still chooses to proceed. "It's okay to remember Rue. It's okay to remember Madge. It's okay to remember Finnick."

He goes on mentioning names of every person who died because of them, some they personally knew, some they didn't. Across the table, Katniss' eyes flare with pure hatred for him, screaming, begging for him to stop. He's on the edge too, feeling himself slowly slipping away to the dark twisted world where she is anything but human, but Peeta holds on. He needs to. 

"It's okay to remember, Katniss. It's a good thing. It's much better than to forget." Peeta pauses, trying to meet her bleary eyes, "And you wouldn't want to forget. That, at least, I can assure you."

To his surprise, his words do seem to reach her because her expression softens, the fire inside her subsiding. It occurs to him then that maybe she does want to forget. That's why she's always outside. In search for her own peace somewhere else. 

"I'm going to bed," Katniss declares, pushing herself away from the table.

"See you tomorrow," he says before she turns her back to him again. From the corner of his eye, Peeta catches her nod, and hears her respond with the same exact words. Nothing less, nothing more.

"See you tomorrow."

They don't bid each other good night.

There hasn't been a single one since the second games.

 

***

 

It’s Buttercup’s tail hitting his face which wakes him up the next morning.

When Peeta sits up, a sharp pain shoots his back and he realizes he’s slept on the couch. How he ended up there, he can’t recall, but he remembers staying up until past midnight preparing the dough for today’s batch of bread. And some cheese buns. Yes, cheese buns. Peeta decided to bake them for Katniss so she has something to eat just in case she comes home late again.

However, there seems to be no time for him to do that because the sun is already up outside which means Katniss must have left by now. Annoyed with himself, Peeta runs his hands through his hair and sinks back to the couch, his head hanging over the back pillows. 

And that’s when he hears it. The gush of water. The constant clinking of plates and glasses. It takes a while for him to notice that he’s not alone. There’s someone else in the kitchen, washing the dishes he apparently forgot to clean last night.

“You’re supposed to be in the woods,” says Peeta, too dumbfounded to stop himself from literally speaking his thoughts out loud as he drinks in the sight of her—Katniss sans her father’s leather jacket, her hair flowing freely down her back in big waves, choppy at some ends but beautiful nevertheless. As though to acknowledge his presence, she turns to him briefly but goes back to the dishes just as quick. 

“I decided not to go today, for a change,” she murmurs, tucking in a loose strand behind her ear. For a second, Peeta thinks he sees a small smile teasing her lips and Haymitch’s words echo in his head once again. 

_ You don’t catch the butterfly. Just stay still and it’ll come to you on its own. _

“No, I don’t think I’ll be going there for a while.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr: pachipachiko.tumblr.com


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